Wanaka

Just had a great week in Wanaka! Wanaka is located on Lake Wanaka (the fourth largest lake in New Zealand). As you can see it is a very beautiful place with the mountains surrounding the lake. The biking was spectacular! The last photo is the view from our balcony. This is the place where Shania Twain has her place but unfortunately, we didn't run into her. We spent about 4 hours one day at Puzzling World. This place has many rooms with various illusions and this outdoor maze that drove me crazy! It has about 1.5 km of maze that you have to wander through and the point is to find the four corners of the maze (the blue corner, red, yellow and green). They say most people walk about 5 km finding the 4 corners and we did at least that. Out of the four of us, Gord (Mr. Logic) took the longest. I found the blue corner 3 times before I found another corner! I couldn't believe how challenging it was. I realized how much Kathleen loves me when she took the time after she solved the entire puzzle to help me find the yellow corner. It was actually quite funny as it took us quite awhile to find it. Anyway, the kids had a great time so it was worth it. Although we have spent 6 nights here, we have decided to leave one day early as we have a long ride up the West coast and it is apparently fairly rugged through the mountains. We will be leaving tomorrow (Thursday) and we will be leaving the South Island heading back to the North Island on Saturday afternoon. We have really enjoyed our time here on the South Island but are looking forward to returning to the North Island as this is where we will visit Raglan and try our luck at surfing. Until then, take care!

Cameron's Best Time in New Zealand!

You can take the boy away from hockey, but you can't take the hockey away from the boy!!!!

As you can see, Cameron had a great afternoon catching up on playing hockey. He didn't have his hockey buddies but he still had a great time! We had heard about this arena in Queenstown so Kathleen thought it would be great to get him out on the ice. We rented him some skates and a puck and a stick and let him go! There was no way that Lauren was going to stick around in a cold arena with all that shopping in town so we decided that one parent would stay at the arena and one would go shopping. Guess who got to stay at the arena? Thats right, the hockey MOM! Kathleen loved watching her little guy skating around and practising his shots. When I got back to the arena Cameron came running up to me and said that it was his best time in New Zealand! He also mentioned that he did better than he thought he would and that he doesn't think he lost any of his hockey skills! Good on ya mate!

Queenstown

Wow! What an amazing time we had in Queenstown! Unfortunately, we had only planned to stay 4 nights/5 days here. We could have stayed much longer! If you ever come down to New Zealand you have to come to Queenstown! We had an amazing opportunity to visit another NZ family. Cordelia is the granddaughter of Kathleen's mom's godmother. We had two visits with Cordelia and her husband Mike and their 3 beautiful daughters Mia, Izzy and Mollie. You will see them in several of the above photos taken at their beautiful home just outside Queenstown. They are the owners of Winnies and we had a great meal there. Lauren and Cameron had a fabulous time playing with the girls. They even got a lesson in how to make sushi from Cordelia. During this lesson, Gord and Kathleen got to sneak off on their own for the afternoon and they visited a winery and had a nice lunch (Kathleen had gnocchi and Gord had roast duck). You can also see the condos where we stayed with the view from our balcony. Very nice! No, that is not Gord hanging from the Bungy Jumping rope (he would have loved to try it but he was specifically told prior to leaving on this trip that his insurance did not cover deaths due to bungy jumping!) but we thought we would include a photo of it. It is quite amazing to see people do this. Kathleen's knees were shaking just watching them. We did get to take a gondola to the top of Queenstown where we got to do the luge rides (go-karts really). This is the photo of Kathleen and Cameron sporting the crash helmets. Fortunately for us, there were no crashes! The kids had a great time here! A great time in Queenstown!

Beautiful Milford Sound!

Milford Sound is truly one of those places that words cannot describe! What an awesome experience we had at Milford Sound! Located on the Southwest part of the South Island, Milford Sound is actually not a sound at all, but rather a fiord, an ice-carved valley, narrow and steep-sided that has been flooded by the sea after the last glacier retreat. It is enclosed by rock that rises from the waterfall up to 4 000 feet and is is 18 km long. Its dominant feature is the 5 560 foot Mitre Peak (photo above). Milford Sound has an average rainfall of around 20 feet and it rains an average of 183 days a year! Luckily for us, we had a beautiful sunny day! The kids enjoyed seeing the seals basking in the sun on rocks as well as one of the most endangered penguin species on the planet, yellow penguins. A fabulous day!

Fun at a sheepfarm!

Lauren and Cameron finally got their wish! They had been hoping to visit a sheep farm ever since we arrived in NZ. Not only did they get to visit a sheep farm, they also had the opportunity to feed and pet 4 of the 8 week old lambs (Lucy, Daffy, Big Boy and SpongeBob). We got to visit the farm of Sue and Graham (friends of Dean and Kirstin) on our way up to Te Anau. This is a 550 acre farm that has 1 500 sheep year round and 1 000 cattle during the winter. The kids had a great time on the farm and were particularly fond of driving the 4 wheeler! A great day! Thanks for your hospitality Sue and Graham (the cheese rolls and fudge were amazing too!).

New Zealand Cuisine at its Finest!

Hogget, whitebait, paua and muttonbird! Wow! These were some of the New Zealand delicacies that we were treated to that were prepared by Dean and Kirsten at their home in Invercargill. What a nice surprise for us when we arrived on the first evening to a beautiful feast of hogget with all the trimmings! Hogget is a second year lamb and according to Dean, the most flavourful lamb there is! We agree! Dean and Kirsten went well out of their way the second evening when they treated us to another NZ feast where they barbecued paua, whitebait, muttonbird, sausages, steak and other wonderful delicacies. We were also fortunate to meet 3 other NZ families who joined us at this festive occasion! Amazing food with amazing people! Our next two days were on the road where we continued to eat wonderful foods at great restaurants! Once again, Dean and Kirsten, you have made our time in Southland very special! Thank you!